I feel this is pretty much all but confirmed by now. The first Medal of Honor wasn’t a huge success for EA, but they really have nothing else right now. DICE might be supposedly busy on the next Battlefield game, but it’s safe to assume we won’t see that for a little while now. EA wants something to directly compete with Call of Duty. Plus: inside of the Battlefield 3 case you will find a handy little ad for what seems like is a follow-up to the Medal of Honor reboot.

It’s EA. It’s Medal of Honor. It’ll happen eventually, and since Medal of Honor came out last in 2010, it is entirely likely it’ll be this year.

I wouldn’t be surprised, given that the developers haven’t announced a new project (or, alternatively, been laid off) since the first game’s 2010 release. A two-year development cycle for an FPS is the norm at this point (most famously with Call of Duty‘s alternating studios), and I don’t think EA wants to give up on this series yet. I would think, though, that they might want to shift the focus a bit away from it being a Call of Duty-killer and launch it at least a few weeks away.

Pretty sure the sequel is gonna happen. Although it might not have hit the expectations that people wanted it to hit, a sequel can help inch closer to dethroning Call of Duty. Any chance that any company gets to try and beat Call of Duty down, they’ll take. I don’t see EA backing down at all.

Isn’t the confirmation of a new Need for Speed the same news as the confirmation of a new Call of Duty at this point? Sure, the franchise isn’t doing nearly as well as it used to, but EA still is fully behind it, even after the dismal reception the previous game, The Run, received. Will this be another new Hot Pursuit game from Criterion or something different entirely? Either way, to have a year without a new Need for Speed would be pretty odd at this point.

Need for Speed is quite nearly a yearly series, like many of EA’s favorite franchises. I can’t even pretend to understand what people like about it, but I’d be very astonished if EA didn’t have one announced and on display at E3 this year.

As much as The Run was a low point for the series, and as much as the enthusiast press is tired of it, this franchise is still one of the best-selling ones EA has. We should see more of a traditional Need for Speed this year, possibly from Criterion (unless they’re working on a Burnout Paradise followup).

This one has a better chance than Medal of Honor. A new Need for Speed game always manages to make an appearance. It’s just a question of which old idea they’ll rehash next.

Dark Souls probably did way better than Namco Bandai was anticipating considering the shortages that happened around launch. It’ll probably be a while before we ever see another brand new Souls game, so having DLC seems like an obvious route to take for From.

Dark Souls did better than Namco Bandai expected, and they love to do DLC for successful games. Given that combination, I fully expect them to release some truly brutal DLC in the next few months.

If there’s DLC, it would be weird to not have it before June of this year, especially given the rabid fanbase of the Souls games. It’s not necessarily what From Software likes to do, but it’s certainly something Namco Bandai likes to do, so I’ll lean toward yes. (An early February bid would give them lots of exposure.)

I’ll go out on a limb here and say they’re definitely going to do it. Considering the game called for a sequel in the first place, they might as well keep their customers happy. Adding more content to one of the most difficult games this generation will only make people want to play it more. They just need to make the DLC even more difficult.